Archive for April, 2015

Experienced qualitative researchers know that it’s all about the recruit. The moderator could be amazing, the facility could have gourmet catering and breathtaking cityscapes, but in the end, the success of any qualitative research project depends on identifying and recruiting engaged, talkative (yet not overbearing) respondents who fit the specified criteria. How do we do this, you may ask? Well, after 25+ years in the biz, we have several tricks up our sleeve. Below, a short primer on how to find qualified participants.

1) Slow Down, Don’t Move too Fast

Take your time pinpointing the recruitment criteria. Every researcher has been in sessions where the participants were correctly recruited, but the recruitment criteria were just plain wrong. Does the research call for category users? Defectors? Specialized businesspeople? Who is the voice of your target market? Category knowledge is key here too – for example we screen out “flippers” from home improvement research and people with severe food allergies from food and beverage work.

2) Behind the Screen

Then it’s on to writing the screener. A screener should be concise, engaging, and should lead the recruiter through the critical points in a logical manner. The questions should be designed to encourage candor in the potential respondent. It should be written in a way that the recruitment criteria are unclear to the respondent, so that they can’t game the system in order to qualify. The screener should also test the respondent for articulation, so that not only is the interview with the right person, but it is also with a person who can share insights expressively.

3) Recruiting the Recruiters

The search for exceptional respondents can only take place with the help of exceptional recruiters. The project directors at Doyle Research develop long-term working relationships with recruiting partners who have proven themselves to be smart, honest, and committed to the goal of delivering the very best respondents on the day of the interview.

At DRA, we know that recruiting quality respondents leads to richer insights. By refining the recruitment criteria, crafting a great screener, and developing relationships with the best recruiters in the business, we deliver respondents whose feedback generates great learning!

Breakthrough insights are more important than ever before. Yet, more than ever before, we find our clients challenged by tighter timeframes and more limited funds. Studies that in the past were comprised of three or four separate phases are now evolving into a single study that leverages the best of both the quantitative and qualitative worlds.

Though there are research purists that might resist this evolution, blended designs leverage elements from a variety of methods to craft a design that best addresses clients’ business and research objectives.

Consider making a minimal investment in blurring the lines of your next quantitative study with one of these four qualitative “add ons”:

Ask a sub-segment of survey respondents to participate in a follow-up bulletin board discussion or webcam focus group. By simply clicking a link at the end of a survey, select respondents can be immediately directed to a qualitative platform to gather additional insight.

Add moderated in-depth interviews to the end of mobile surveys. To bring additional context and insights to text-based survey findings, opt to have select participants interviewed by a moderator. Participants can provide additional depth and understanding, respond to follow-up probes, send photos or videos of their product usage behavior, purchase triggers, usage environment, etc.

Conduct an IHUTnography where a sub-segment of participants from a quantitative Product Placement study participate in a more in-depth in-situ interview. Using a webcam to stream the depth interview, participants can be observed using the product, asked about product usage and key features, and probed about challenges and/or benefits, unmet needs.

Add a post-research assignment to an advertising research study. Consider placing the new product with your research participants to assess how well it delivers relative to the claims communicated in your test ad. Have participants use the product, complete an online survey and/or email a video selfie sharing their thoughts and opinions with the team.

So why not try blurring the lines of your next quantitative study to see what adding a little qual can do for you.